Online shopping spree leads to delivery chaos

A seasonal online shopping spree has resulted in a delivery logjam after a leading courier company failed to cope with demand.

Yodel, whose 200 retail customers include M&S and Amazon UK, revealed it is struggling to cope with 1.5m deliveries a day and failing to deliver about 15,000 parcels per day.

Yodel chief executive Jonathan Smith told the Financial Times that demand had been 20% more than anticipated in certain areas including parts of the south-east and north-west.

He said: “This appears to have been a very strong online Christmas and I don’t think anyone would have put their money on that in the summer. The high street seems to be in a different place.”

Amazon customers have been particularly vocal about delivery problems they have experienced and have launched an online petition urging the online giant to stop using Yodel.

Amazon told the Financial Times: “We do take all customer feedback on board and monitor the performance of our carriers in order that we can provide an even better service.

“We are very confident that customers who are expecting deliveries before Christmas will receive them.”

A Yodel spokesman told Retail Week: ““Both of our networks are currently clear and there is no backlog. The vast majority of our deliveries run smoothly for our clients and their customers, however where issues do occur we take customer service very seriously and work to resolve them as swiftly as possible.”

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